This course examines 19th-century fiction and its contemporary film adaptations, exploring how modern filmmakers reinterpret the social, moral, psychological, and aesthetic concerns of the Victorian age. As industrialisation, scientific progress, and imperial expansion reshaped nineteenth-century life, writers such as Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Bram Stoker, and Oscar Wilde grappled with enduring questions of faith, gender, morality, and modernity. Through the study of selected novels, short stories, and their cinematic counterparts, students will analyse how adaptation translates literary form into visual language, transforming narrative perspective, characterisation, and social critique. The course approaches film adaptation as both an act of creative translation and a mode of cultural commentary, considering how contemporary films reframe 19th-century anxieties about power, identity, and desire for new audiences and historical contexts.
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The Gothic imagination: fear, repression, and the supernatural
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Gender and sexuality
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Empire, class, and the moral conscience
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Science, technology, and the crisis of belief
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Adaptation and intertextuality: translating literature into film
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The aesthetic and decadent movements in late Victorian culture
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Intermedia analysis: narrative voice, visual language, and performance
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19th Century on screen: cultural memory and reinvention
At the end of the course, students will be able to:
- recognise and describe the principal themes and genres of nineteenth-century fiction and short stories;
- analyse the literary techniques employed by 19th-century writers to address issues of faith, morality, gender, and modernity;
- evaluate how contemporary film adaptations reinterpret and transform these texts through visual style, performance, and narrative design;
- apply concepts from adaptation studies and literary criticism to close readings of both textual and cinematic materials;
- relate the concerns of nineteenth-century literature and its filmic adaptations to contemporary social, cultural, and ethical issues;
- reflect critically on the continuing relevance of Victorian imagination in shaping modern artistic and intellectual life.
There will be three contact hours per week consisting of a mix of group and class discussions, mini-lectures and film screenings, Socratic circles, student-led presentations, and other discussion-based and critical thinking activities. Mini-lectures will introduce key historical, cultural, and theoretical contexts of nineteenth-century literature and its filmic adaptations, while group and class discussions will provide opportunities for close reading, comparative analysis, and exchange of ideas. Socratic circles and presentations will further encourage collaborative learning and independent thought. Active participation and consistent preparation are essential for success in this course.
Attendance is mandatory: if you miss more than 3 classes you may run the risk of a failing grade for participation.
Class Participation: 20%
Reader Response: 25%
Group Presentation: 40%
Final Essay: 30%
Primary Texts (excerpts and selected readings)
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813)
Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (1847)
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper (1892)
Bram Stoker, Dracula (1897)
Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband (1895)
Filmic Texts (selected screenings and clips)
Pride and Prejudice (Dir. Joe Wright, 2005)
Jane Eyre (Dir. Cary Fukunaga, 2011)
Dracula (Dir. Francis Ford Coppola, 1992)
An Ideal Husband (Dir. Oliver Parker, 1999)
*Required texts and additional readings will be available on Moodle.